New Essex County College president comes with passion to improve school

Tony Kurdzul/The Star-LedgerEdythe Abdullah, the new President of Essex County College, in her office on the college campus, where she has a panoramic photo of Florida Community College of Jacksonville, her former place of employment.

Edythe Abdullah is just settling in to her new office, with a view of Newark’s downtown high-rises. For one, she’s not entirely comfortable glaring across an executive desk, looking authoritarian.

"I’m not one to sit behind a desk and talk to people. I like to be eye to eye," she says barely a week after arriving in Room 6119, the president’s digs at the 23,000-student Essex County College.

Abdullah is far from the blue waters of Jacksonville, Fla., where she was president of the Downtown Campus of Florida State College. It was where she was raised, where her quarter-century-long career blossomed. "I finally left the nest," she said.

Now comes the nesting of a new kind, a chance to build on the legacy of retired A. Zachary Yamba, who during his 29-year tenure was credited with transforming a struggling institution.

To Abdullah, a 56-year-old divorced mother of four high-achievers, she comes with a passion to improve on the 96 percent rate of students required to take remedial courses at the college, in part by enlisting faith-based groups to tutor students in basics before college.

"From my point of view, it shouldn’t be higher than 20 percent," she said.

Of late, she has been hitting the hallways and common areas, stopping to talk to such students as Jayson Hull, president of the Student Government Association. His concerns include the cost of textbooks — which at the campus bookstore run from the $68.95 paperback "The Art of Critical Reading" to the $137.25 hardcover "Electronic Principles" — and $2.8 million in state aid cuts that have led to a ECC hiring freeze.

"Nope. Surprise. Surprise," she would say later of knowing about the financial crisis before taking the job as ECC’s sixth president on April 1.

Elsewhere, she engages students. The introductions are important. "I didn’t grow up here," she said. "I didn’t go up through the ranks."

That happened in Jacksonville, where the then Edythe Dwight went to Raines High School before majoring in religion at Valparaiso University in Indiana and securing a law degree from the University of Florida.

The Baptist-born girl who later aspired to become the first African-American female pastor in the Lutheran Church before converting to Muslim is now a Baptist again. "All religions are basically the same," she said. "It’s okay to move around a little."

It turns out Abdullah is a Republican, one who nevertheless donated $500 to the last Democratic presidential nominee. "I’m a Republican for Obama," she admits. In her office is a plaque picturing Abraham Lincoln, under the heading "Perseverance" and noting the famed president’s many failures in life. "My favorite Republican," she said.

These days, Abdullah lives in a South Orange condo after emerging from a field of 39 candidates for the $225,000-a-year job at ECC. In the final stretch, she rose to the top among three finalists based on what the Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, the college board’s chairman, said was her dedication to the community college sector and her role in championing partnerships with businesses and local schools.

Back home in Jacksonville, she has left Donald Green, a Florida State vice president, in charge of the Careers and Karate program they started eight years ago to combat low high-school graduation rates by teaching discipline. He’s a black belt. She’s a green belt. "Eighty-five percent of them have graduated high school," she said of the 94 students-to-date. "None of them have been arrested, gone to jail, any of those counterproductive things."

In New Jersey. she intends to enlist everyone from educators to clerical and security staff in her mission to improve ECC, where more than 60 percent of grads now step up to four-year schools such as Rutgers and even Cornell.

To hear Green talk about it, Abdullah is made for the job, someone adept at "lifestyle integration," or understanding how to wed education with students’ life experiences.

"She is a very warm person," Green said. "She’s a great communicator at all levels -- from students to the president of the United States to the legislature. ... You do have a great leader on your hands."